Ori and the Blind Forest: A Brief Review of the Game that Inspired me to SpeedRun
When Ori and the Blind Forest was released in March of this year I saved up and bought the game for my PC. This was a dumb decision since I am sadly not a member of the PC gaming master race. But I fell in love with the music, the art, and what little gameplay and story I was able to consume before my Laptop started to look at me funny.
Jump forward more than half a year I saved up, bought the Xbox One and jumped back on that Ori train. Holy cow this game is incredible. It's just an all around great experience the likes of which I have not had in a very long time. Again the music and atmosphere are memorable and immersive, the story is captivating and the gameplay gets progressively more interesting and challenging throughout the game without becoming completely impossible.
After a single playthrough I decided that I wanted to learn this game inside and out so for the very first time I have joined the speedrunning community. Over the past month I have gone from utter scrub to being a slightly better scrub. The community is incredibly supportive and I never would have believed I could do it, but I am and it's been a lot of fun.
My run time to beat right now is 3 hrs and 4 min. That doesn't sound terribly impressive does it? But for a sucktastic gamer such as myself who started out with an 11hr run and am now around the 3 hour mark I think I'll give myself just a little pat on the back.
I would definitely recommend buying this one now... what are you waiting for? why are you still here?
While your at it pick up the soundtrack. Gareth Coker has created a soundtrack masterpiece that manages to do exactly what music should in a game. You will always remember this game's story , and the hours spent trying to escape the Ginso Tree, or Mount Horu everytime you immerse yourself in the score.
If I'm honest I started speedrunning so that I find even more ways to hear that soundtrack over and over again! <3
My favorite Songs from the game are Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark, Escaping the Ruins, and Fleeing Kuro. The whole thing is gloriously fantastic and I'm pushing it on both my blood family and my gaming family. You will too!!!!
UPDATE: Recently the Definitive Edition of Ori and the Blind Forest was released! May 11th the game came out, and on March 18th I took part in the Materia Collective release of NIBEL: Ori and the Blind Forest Remixed. If you love the game, the soundtrack or both please check out our project.
My track Escaping the Ruins [Speedrun Mix] is dedicated to the Ori Speedrunning community. The Ori speedrunning community is very encouraging and supportive. I'm proud to be a part of it!
Buy it Here: Loudr Or Listen to it on Spotify!
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